Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1884 [PAGE 151]

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155 The muscle clot consists of myosin. In the muscles of freshly killed animals it is in the semi-fluid condition common to all flesh. The muscle at this time is alkaline in its reaction, but in a short time it becomes acid. This myosin now sets or coagulates, and causes the hardening or stiffening of the muscles, commonly called rigor mortis. It is soluble in a ten per cent, solution of sodium chloride, and in neutral salts of all degrees of concentration; exceedingly soluble in dilute alkalies and acids, but can not be separated from solutions in the latter, unchanged. According to Kuhne, the muscle serum consists of at least three forms of albumen: 1. Albumen coagulating at 30 degrees C. (86 P.) when abundance of acid is present. Probably a mixture of potassium albuminate and sodium phosphate. 2. Albumen coagulating at 45 degrees C. (113 degrees F.) 3. A large quantity of albumen coagulating at 75 degrees C. (167 degrees F.) There are other matters still in small quantities coagulating at 90 degrees C. (195 degrees F.) The rigor mortis is undoubtedly due in part to the coagulation of some of these albuminoids by the acids developed in the muscle after death. But DuBois Beymond believes that there is no relation between the acidity of the muscles and the rigor mortis. This acid reaction is due principally to paralactic acid, though other acids are present, such as inosinic, butyric, acetic, and formic. Other bodies are also present in small quantities, but in the dietetic relations of flesh they are of little importance as compared with the constituents already mentioned, and for our present purpose may be disregarded. They appear in the following table given by Hoffman, showing the composition of the flesh of mammals:

Solid c o n s t i t u e n t s in 1,000 p a r t s Water, in 1,000 p a r t s Organic m a t t e r s , in 1,000 p a r t s I n o r g a n i c m a t t e r s , in 1,000 p a r t s ..-. C o a g u l a t e d a l b u m e n , s a r c o l e m m a , n e u d e i , v e s s e l s , etc Alkaline a l b u m i n a t e Creatinine Xanthine and hypoxathine T a u r i n e (peculiar to t h e horse) Inosit Glycogen Lactic acid P h o s p h o r i c acid Potash Soda Lime Magnesia Sodium chloride Oxide of iron 217—255 745—783 208—245 9— 10 145—167 28.5 —30.1 2.0 0.2 0.7 0.03 4.1 —5.0 0.4 - 0 . 7 3.4 —3.8 3.0 —3.9 0.4 - 0 . 4 3 0.16-0.18 0.4 —0.41 0.04—0.1 0.03—0.1

The coagulated albumen and alkaline albuminates therefore constitute the greater portion of the organic matters of flesh, and correspond with the muscle plasma of Kuhn and syntonin of Liebig and the earlier investigators of the composition of flesh. The extent to which they differ from the albumen of egg and blood has already been shown, and in a certain sense is familiar to every one. But we see that about 75 per cent, of these solids have a nutritive value quite equivalent to that of the solids of eggs.